Rubber Consultants offer a comprehensive range of analytical services to assist you in failure investigation, quality control monitoring and research and development of your products.

Rubber Consultants Infra-red capabilities were recently updated with the acquisition of two new facilities which offer some new analytical applications.

The new 'Thunderdome' ATR helps identify surface coatings and contamination of rubber and plastic goods. 'Thunderdome is a single reflectance accessory that fits into the sample compartment of Rubber Consultants Perkin Elmer System 2000 FT Infra-red spectrometer. The germanium crystal and probe allows small point contact with surfaces of samples and allows IR spectra to be obtained for small areas of surface to be compared with other parts of the surface and the bulk of the sample. The germanium crystal even allows the analysis of black loaded and black coloured samples that may not be able to be examined by other IR methods.

Work for clients so far has included:

The identification of contaminants on surfaces of rubber and plastic articles, or hard nibs and nodules imbedded in rubber sheets.

The identification of surface coatings and surface treatments on rubber articles and gloves.

The identification of fibres, hard plastics and resins not easily identified by more conventional IR methods.

In many cases depending on the size of the specimen the analysis is non-destructive. Analysis and information derived from this method may be supplemented with data that can be obtained from our Scanning Electron Microscope X-ray detector. This method is now one of our UKAS accredited procedures and can be offered at low cost. Rubber Consultants System 2000 FT Infra-red spectrometer is now coupled to a thermogravimetric analyser helping determine the composition of volatile materials and polymer types and levels.

The coupled method has several new applications:

The TGA weight ratios of rubber and plastics, carbon black and inert materials in a formulation can be obtained with the simultaneous determination of the types of polymers present observed by FTIR.

Studies of the thermal decomposition of materials and the simultaneous identification of any liberated vapours and gases.

Identification and amount of volatile components in adhesives and latex based materials

Where there is a blend of rubbers or plastics in a material the heating rate on the TGA may be altered to identify polymers that have different thermal decomposition characteristics. Both single polymers and polymer blend formulations have already been analysed with this new method and we continue to explore further new applications. We are one of few independent laboratories in the UK able to offer this coupled facility.

Applications Enquires

For enquires about the application of either of these facilities to solve materials processing problems please contact Colin Hull in Materials Characterization.